


A Troubling Syntax

by rosa_acicularis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-12
Updated: 2011-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_acicularis/pseuds/rosa_acicularis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock engage in a brief discussion of romance, grammar, and blogging. It goes about as well as you'd expect. An outtake from my Molly-centric story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/139351/chapters/200336">The Anatomist</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Troubling Syntax

The lab door swings shut behind her, and John sighs. “Sherlock, I know this is a stupid question—”

“Excellent,” Sherlock says without looking up from his microscope. “Then we can avoid it entirely.” He frowns, carefully readjusting the magnification. “And so your famous self-deprecating charm saves us once again. Well done, John.”

“This is serious. That poor girl is in love with you.”

Sherlock blinks. “Who?”

John leans back against the table, arms folded across his chest. “ _Molly_ , Sherlock. The woman who was staring you at with great big cartoon hearts in her eyes until about ten seconds ago? Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

Sherlock turns to the computer and types quickly, one-handed – PRONOUNCED CELLULAR DECAY, REFINED DISTRIBUTION NECESSARY. CHOCOLATE BAR? W/ OR W/O NUTS? Then he pushes his chair back from the table and meets John’s eyes. “ _You’re_ staring at me. Are you in love with me as well?”

“Oh yes,” John says, through his teeth. “Desperately.”

Sherlock nods. “I thought as much.” He swivels back to the computer. “I’ve known Molly for more than two years, John; her fascination with me is more intellectual than romantic, I assure you.”

“I take it you haven’t read her blog, then.”

“And you have? How depressing.”

John rolls his eyes. “She commented on mine, you arse. I wanted to see who it was, and I found this.” He elbows Sherlock away from the keyboard and brings up his blog. A few links later, the browser window is eye-achingly pink and overrun with kittens. _Molly Hooper_ , it says across the top of the page in a large, hyper-feminine font. _29 January. He was in again today and I still don’t understand him. One minute he's noticing the tiniest thing about me and the next it's like I'm not even here…_

“Unusual,” Sherlock murmurs, and skips back to an earlier post. He scans each entry quickly, his eyes darting across the screen, and when he reaches the first of the painfully sincere declarations of love, the corner of his mouth twitches.

“It’s not funny, Sherlock,” John says. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

“Flattered as I am by your generous opinion of my sense of—” Sherlock stops, frowning, and skips to the next entry. He leans forward, squinting at the screen. “I don’t suppose you’ve noticed that these entries demonstrate a markedly masculine syntactic structure.”

John drags a weary hand over his face, his fingers rasping over day-old stubble. “Sherlock, are you saying Molly is a man?”

“I’m saying this blog is _written_ by a man. An intelligent one who subtly mocks his subject even as he impersonates her.” He taps the screen with one long finger. “The missing commas, John. Their absence is as good as a Y chromosome to anyone with a basic understanding of sociolinguistics. And when one takes into account the short, declarative sentences, frequently meaningless exclamations, and subtext of bitter self-loathing, it becomes perfectly obvious to even a casual observer that Molly Hooper is not the author of this blog.” He sits back in his chair and smiles up at John, awaiting his well-earned praise.

“That,” John says, “was complete and utter rubbish. You’re just trying to weasel your way out of another conversation about messy human emotion, aren’t you?”

Sherlock scowls and closes the webpage with an abrupt click of the mouse. “There _is_ something odd about her use of dependent clauses.”

John shakes his head, fighting a grin. “People aren’t maths problems, Sherlock. No matter how carefully you observe and deduce, you’ll never sort them out completely. They’ll always surprise you.”

Sherlock returns to his microscope. “Some people, perhaps,” he says, glancing over his shoulder to give John a brief, unreadable look. “But not Molly Hooper.”


End file.
